I fully believe in merit based success. I firmly subscribe to the
view that it should be irrelevant whether you are male or female,
young or old, religious or non-religious, short or tall, black or
white, hell, even green or yellow for that fact, working hard and
doing the best job you can is all that should matter to validate
you.
BUT having said that, as a female and a mother of a daughter, I
have to confess, to being a Hypocrite. There was a part of me
yesterday that was absolutely thrilled to see a Female become
Prime Minister. Obviously the circumstances were not good (and we
will get to that later), but it does not change the fact , that
the seal is now broken.There would have been so many little girls
sitting around dinner tables last night, hearing their parents
talk, and thinking, hey, I might rule Australia one day... Kids
are really simplistic, reminds me of my Grandma's saying, "Monkey
See, Monkey Do", and human nature being what it is, we can't help
but compare ourselves to others.
Yesterday brought back a memory for me of my daughter when she
was 6 or 7, we were reading 'Snugglepot and Cuddlepie' and
somehow the conversation got around to the author May Gibbs, how
back in the early 1900's there were not that many women authors
and how May Gibbs even had difficulty getting a bank account in
her own name for book sales. My daughter thought that was
'stupid', "Why Not?, I have a bank account". And so the
females voting etc. chat ensued. This conversation illustrated
how kids see the world, and cannot envisage not being able to
aspire to something when they can patently 'see' that others have
done so.
Nasty stuff how we got our first Female PM and the blogs seem to
have a recurring theme in the comments about how 'We did not
elect her'... A worry really, if that is the majority consensus,
as it shows a major lack of understanding ofthe Political Process
by a majority of Australians, (maybe seriously teaching
Government in school would be a good idea to add to the
'Education Revolution'). We NEVER elect a Prime
Minister, regardless of the pretty pamphlets and all the polling
asking who do you want as PM, the sad fact is, that we
haveno choice whatsoever, and never have. It is
an odd irony that Political Parties, by their very nature, are
Non Democratic which is particularly perverse in a Democratic
country where it is illegal not to vote. Every Political Party
have their 'men in grey suits' (normally men), high flying
members of the party, normally called 'Caucus', who sit down,
look at all the members in the party, decide who is going to look
good for them to win the 'hearts & minds' of the voters, and
that is who leads.You and I have nothing to do with it. In fact,
even when you vote, you are not voting for the leaders, you are
voting for your Local Representative, and this is where Political
Parties can become even more un-democratic.
Hypothetical... I am using Labor in my example
here, but all the major parties are basically the same.
Let's say the Labor Party policies seem ok to you, and your local
Labor Candidate seems like a good bloke, so you vote him in. He
says "I feel so privileged that you have honoured me with
representing you in Canberra blah blah...". But later down the
track, Labor decide, Right, we are tidying up the beaches
of Australia.We will be putting into law that you need to get a
licence to use the beach... (Yes, I know ludicrous, but
stay with me here). Now, obviously being a beach loving area, we
would not be very happy about this. In fact we would scream blue
murder and expect our Labor Guy that we voted in to do everything
in his power to stop this stupid law, which the 'Majority' of the
electorate here hates. Guess what, even though his first
responsibility should be to represent the wishes of the majority
of his electorate, he won't! He will apologise, tell you it was
out of his hands, stress how he tried, blah blah, but the fact
is, he will always vote in Parliament as per what the "Party"
wants, not his Electorate. So even though in a democracy, the
Elected Representative is supposed to responsible to his
electorate first & foremost, if they belong to a Political
Party, they are not, and in most cases, Political Parties will
not allow a conscience vote, nor will they allow any sort of
dissension as they think it will dilute the 'message' or 'brand'.
Sort of fraudulent if you think about it?
Your guess is as good as mine as to whether Julia Gillard will be
a good PM or not? I hope so, as from a purely non-political
perspective, it would be great to see more females aspire to the
top job because she was (hopefully) a good role model. Regardless
of their Agenda, maybe the 'Men in Grey Suits' have done the
future female generations of this country a Favour? Either way,
it looks like the fun and games of a Federal Election are about
to heat up, and as our new PM said yesterday, "Game On"!
What do you reckon? Think She will be a good PM? Feel Sorry for
Kevvy07? Think things will change? Let us know your
Thoughts...
Cheers,
Noely
Original issue:
"Hypocrisy and Dodgy Politics" The MSC Editors Desk
25 June 2010
